Where do we go from here? As the nation mourned for Rosa Parks, O.C. residents talked about her legacy and the work that lies ahead to build a color-blind society. The consensus? There is a lot of work left to do.

Shelby Powell-Hicks

Unlike most teens, Shelby Powell-Hicks knows Rosa Parks as more than just a historical figure. She remembers the good-natured lady who brought cookies on visits to her home in Anaheim.

Her mother, Cynthia Powell-Hicks, met Parks through a mutual friend, traveled with her to Japan in the 1990s, and became friends. She attended the funeral in Detroit.

Shelby, 16, put Parks’ death in perspective: “It marks the end of an era of great leaders that come from that time. Her passing just shows the huge difference in the way the world is today. I can go walking down the street and not get shouted at to get in the street. I can walk on the sidewalk.”

But she believes the changes Parks helped put in motion are not complete.

“We have to focus on ending racial profiling. We’re all, not just African-Americans, still judged for what we are, not what we do.”

–Theresa Walker

Thomas Parham

Diversity of skin color isn’t the federal government’s most pressing issue anymore, said Thomas Parham, a past president of 100 Black Men of Orange County and current assistant vice chancellor for counseling and health services at UC Irvine.

Diversity of opinions and solutions when it comes to education, the environment, the war in Iraq, health care, and the budget deficit should be the goal, Parham said.

We shouldn’t argue about whose fault it is that Hurricane Katrina devastated poor communities, he said. Help should be in place before a disaster.

“There were people living in squalor in the richest country in the world,” Parham said. “That’s a national disgrace.”

Parham believes voices of leaders will emerge from the black community, but to “be careful if you’re searching for one single voice.”

“There will always be tension about what is the best way,” Parham said. “The debate will continue.”

– Keith Sharon

Dorothy “Dottie” Mulkey

They wouldn’t sell her the car. At least not the car she wanted.

Last month, Dorothy Mulkey went to a dealership in Anaheim to buy an expensive model, but kept getting steered to a cheaper car. She suspects it was because she’s a woman and “I don’t even want to say the other reason.”

“We haven’t arrived yet,” said the 65-year-old grandmother. “Finally, I told the manager, ‘Your salesman just unsold the car.'”

Mulkey believes the way to achieve civil rights is taking a stand every day. Like not buying the car.

In the 1960s, she took a huge stand. A landlord wouldn’t rent to her and her husband because they were black. State law said the landlord could rent as he chose. They took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with them in 1967.

She’s pessimistic about the future of civil rights and says the younger generation takes privileges for granted.

“They have a false sense of security.”

– Valeria Godines

Sylvia Mendez

It’s like we’ve come full circle, she says.

“We are more segregated now than we were in 1944,” said Sylvia Mendez, 69, daughter of Gonzalo Mendez, who fought school segregation in the 1940s.

“At that time it was law. Now it is demographics and poverty. But at least we have a choice.”

Santa Ana schools, for example, are 92 percent Hispanic.

In 1944, Sylvia’s parents sued the Westminster School District because it banned their children from attending a “white” school. In 1947, the courts sided with the family. The Mendez case was cited in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case that ended segregation nationwide.

She’s optimistic about the future. There are Latino leaders and more being groomed.

She’s also pleased with the more positive roles that Latinos are playing in Hollywood.

“They’re not peons and hookers or maids, and I think we are being visualized in an everyday situation,” she says.

– Valeria Godines

Leigha Carrington

Only in the past few days did Leigha Carrington’s 10-year-old daughter, Kylie, learn the full story of Rosa Parks. Once she did, the little girl began crying.

“‘Why did she have to die?’ she asked me,” Carrington said. “I told her that it’s up to us to keep (Parks’) name alive and keep keeping on her path.

“We need to see a lot of different kinds of faces in Congress – African-American and Latino-American and Native American and Asian-American. You don’t see that now.”

After Parks’ death, she asked her father-in-law, a pastor at Friendship Baptist Church in Yorba Linda: Where are our new leaders going to come from?

“The church has a big part to play, just like in the past. Jesus Christ comes first and can give that example,” Carrington said.

She said pastors work with young people and emphasize education. “The young people know that even if their home lives are a mess, they have a home here at the church. That’s how we’re helping to rear the next generation of leaders.”

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